House changes.

I was making the turn into our neighborhood this week when it struck me that it was a really similar day to the day (bright, sunny, autumnal) I came into the neighborhood for the first time with our realtors and saw what would become our house. In fact, it's been almost a year, which is unbelievable.

So I thought I'd show what we've done to the outside of our house, which may or may not look like much once I have the pictures set up. Here's how the house looked the first time I saw it in November:

The first thing we did, in March, was add shrubs across the front. These were freebies from a friend, hence the irregular sizes.

In April, we added a low stone wall to demarcate the front flowerbed. What we've had to do is build landscaping basically from scratch, as the previous owners (the "plant-haters," as they're known) had ripped out all the trees, shrubs and plants for reasons known only to themselves. We also filled the bed with a couple truckloads of composted soil.

In May and June, I slowly added some herbs and perennials to the flowerbeds. This has been the most trying part for me, because I have no idea what I'm doing, or what will do well and what won't. Bright annuals seem like the obvious choice to fill the beds, but as the front of the house is the only section that gets any substantial amount of sun, I decided to make the bed my herb garden, supplemented with perennials, and then filled in with annuals.

Being timid about spending vast sums of money, I didn't fill in the beds nearly as much as I should/could have, but I'm just writing off 2006 as a learning year. Hopefully, in these pictures I took yesterday, you can see how the beds have filled in a little. Most of the plants struggled through July and August, and didn't really start to thrive until the weather cooled off in September.

Since the only gardening I've done is in pots, planning gardens and beds for a bare canvas this size is fairly daunting to me, especially since plants are such a money gamble. I'm afraid I take it personally when they turn up their toes and die on me!

Next spring I'm hoping my German neighbor with the super-green thumb will repeat her offer of plants from her garden...I was just not ready to start planting when she was thinning out her gardens in March.

Once the weather cools, I'm going to throw in some bulbs and pray the squirrels don't feast on them...and I may splurge on a few flowering shrubs to plant along the treeline in back.

My plans for next year are to keep adding plants to the front, until I have a really full jumble of all different sorts of things. English garden-style is what I'm going for. And then I'll take on the backyard, which is an even more daunting task!

The next major cosmetic change to the front needs to be updated paint on the shutters, door, and garage door--all of which are looking mighty faded from 20 years of southern sunshine. I'm thinking navy blue would look crisp; right now it's all an 80's style country blue which is not only faded but seriously out-of-date. Painting the garage door will be a stopgap until we're ready to replace it with a nice new door--sorely needed.

In search of a nimble brain...and a tender heart.

Okay, so I need to get batteries for the spare digital camera, because this is my umpteenth post with no accompanying photos. Not that I have anything to take pictures of, but blog entries are always so much more fun with pictures.

It's raining. Hard. Again. I really don't mind a bit, but these huge storms have been amazingly frequent this fall. And I always end up out in them, through my own idiocy!

I went to Barnes and Noble this afternoon and picked up State of Denial by Bob Woodward...I really want to hunker down and make it through this book, but I have gotten dumber in the years since college and have a harder time focusing. I don't think I'm as smart as I think I am. I'm always picking up these history books that look super interesting, and I make it through the first third, if that, and then Dummy Brain kicks in and I just can't focus anymore and remember all those people and all those policies.

I am thinking about my brain as I all-too-rapidly approach yet another damned birthday, and wonder how to keep it nimble and alert. I already have chronic hereditary depression and anxiety killing off brain cell function at a rapid pace...how to hang on to the capacity I still have???

My ideas for brain cell growth include: learning how to play a guitar and read music, learning how to knit and/or crochet, and learning how to machine sew. Learning the rudiments of a foreign language could also fit onto that list somehow. Italian, maybe. Oh, and learning how to bake bread, yeast-style.

And I could also pull down that stack of history books and give myself a crash 20th-century history refresher course. The 20th-century is my century...that's the one I sort of specialized in while taking classes for my history degree. Insofar as it was possible to specialize at a school with a three-professor history department. A couple of the books on my stack, in case anyone was wondering (you know you were):

The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany
The Cold War: A History
War in a Time of Peace: Bush Clinton, and the Generals
Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1525-1828
A Peace to End All Peace: the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

See, now I would look like an awfully smart cookie if I could declare that I had read ANY of those books through to the end.

My mother-in-law commented to me once that for a peace-loving Mennonite, I was awfully interested in war. And it's true. Twentieth-century war, anyway...don't ask me anything about the Napoleonic Wars. War changes the countries that fight it. Those changes shape the way we live today, the things we worry about and the things we carry around in our national subconscious. It's endlessly fascinating to me.

Now if I could just get through a book.

Oh, one last thing...I have been so burdened this week by what happened to those Amish girls on Monday. I have always had a soft spot for little Amish girls...they are so beautiful in their dresses and aprons and caps and braids. They seem like girls from another era, so innocent and untouched. My mother and my grandmothers were Mennonite, not Amish, but they grew up in dresses and braids, too...as did I, although growing up in the modern-day Mennonite Church I was able to wear pants and cut my hair when I wanted to.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I always saw people I loved sort of reflected in the faces of Amish girls.

To think of the horror that fell upon them on Monday just is almost too much to wrap my mind around. To think of the humble and brave way they met their deaths breaks my heart wide open. I am not a news junkie...I don't care to wallow in other people's grief, I've mentioned that here before. Sometimes that borders, for me, on cynicism and sort of a disconnectedness from the tragedy du jour. But this one really got to me.

Mennonite Central Committee and Mennonite Disaster Service, two organizations that do so much good in the world, are both creating a fund to provide support for the families and the community...if you have a few spare dollars to contribute, please do. You can donate online here, or mail a check marked "Amish School Recovery Fund" to MCC, 21 S. 12th St., P.O. Box 500, Akron, PA 17501. Thanks.

Catching up.

Well, I've certainly neglected this blog over the summer, haven't I?

Virginia has a peculiar weather pattern I've noticed the past few years--right about Labor Day, the intense heat and humidity break and life goes back to a happy pleasant temperature. This year the pattern held true, so I've gone from too deep-in-funk to want to write, to a state of such mental alertness that I'm too busy to write. Also many of the things I've been pondering haven't been blog-appropriate, which definitely is a style-crimper. I've honestly been taken aback at how many people read this thing--people who know me in...gasp...real life! So sometimes you gotta watch what you ponder about in public!

I started off September with a little home project: overhauling what I call my "utility closet" off my kitchen. We have two closets that open off the kitchen; I believe one was intended to be a coat/storage closet and the other a pantry. Well, the pantry became a tiny laundry room, and the coat closet has held a mishmash of paint cans, cleaners, and other detritus that used to live in our very roomy utility closet back in the condo.

This closet is much smaller and did not have shelves, just one shelf/hanger rod combo at the top. Then we had stuck a small leftover bookshelf inside just to have a place to stack things.

So we pulled everything out and Todd fitted it with white wire shelving, leaving room for the vacuum cleaner to slide in and the recycle bin to slide under. Just enough room on the sides to hang brooms and a mop, and that's that.

The closet was a very unattractive beigey color with 20 years worth of scuffs and scrapes, so I painted the whole thing white, and it just looks so pretty and clean. And neat! And tidy! Is there anything better than a clean tidy closet? I don't think so.

My friend Bev came down from Ohio to Virginia Beach on Labor Day for her vacation, and I went down and spent a couple days with her there on the oceanfront. We got rained on a lot, but we still had a fabulous time. I'll try to put up some pictures once I can get hold of them off Todd's computer. We took a dolphin-watching tour on the ocean that was amazing--I've never ever seen so many dolphins! And we drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in pouring rain, which sort of spoiled the view, but it was still exciting. I was glad to get to spend even just a tiny bit of time with Bev.

Last weekend I finally made a decision about what to do with our foyer/stairway/upstairs hallway, which all flow together. The walls are absolutely filthy, scuffed and scraped and gouged, and in desperate need of paint. And the carpet on the stairs really needs to be replaced. But if I replaced the stair carpet, then I'd need to either carry that through in the upstairs rooms or the downstairs rooms, so that it would all flow together.

I don't know why it was so har for me to figure out what to do, but we finally came up with re-carpeting the stairs, living room, and dining room. So I went to Lowe's to find a paint color and the right carpet.

The paint I chose is called Latté, from Laura Ashley. (Most of our home colors have been from Laura Ashley--love that line.) It's just a shade lighter than the original color, but warmer, and it's a semi-gloss, rather than flat. And I'm also re-painting the white trim, which is also terribly scuffed, gouged, and dirty. (Dogs and bachelors (the previous owners) are apparently awfully hard on a house.)

I've gotten the foyer all done, now I'm preparing to tackle the hallway. The stairs will be a chore in and of themselves, and Todd has worked out some idea for rigging a platform out over the stairs, which makes me queasy just thinking about it, so that will be his job and I'll stand by and pray for his safety while he paints it.

The foyer looks fabulous--so clean now, and the semi-gloss really reflects what little light there is, whereas the flat paint just sucked it up. I'll wait to get a picture till after we get the new carpet down, sometime here in the next few weeks.

So things are good, life is busy, and my brain has finally kicked back into order. It feels good.

Day of mourning.

The phone rang very early this morning and woke me up. It was only a telemarketer (grrr), but once I climbed back into bed, I thought about the phone call that pulled me out of bed exactly five years ago today.

On September 11, 2001, I was getting over the flu and had slept in. I heard the phone ring downstairs and padded down to hear Todd's voice on the answering machine: "Turn on the TV. I called Mary and John is okay."

John was our friend who was a United flight attendant flying out of Boston at the time. I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't be okay, until of course I turned on the TV and tried to make sense of the chaotic scene I saw. The rest of the morning is a blur. The one thing I remember vividly is calling Todd after the second tower fell and my voice failing as I realized I had just seen thousands of people die.

Apart from being concerned about our friend, and having to reschedule the trip to Connecticut we had planned for that weekend, Todd and I weren't directly affected by what happened on September 11. We didn't have friends or family in New York or at the Pentagon or on Flight 93. Life went back to normal pretty quickly for us, apart from watching the news every night and feeling the grief of all those people searching and searching for their loved ones.

This September 11, I won't be seeking out any news programs re-living the day. I don't even think I'll seek out any news programs that may track where our country has come since that day. I know all too well where we've come...to a world that seemed unthinkable to most of us on September 10, 2001.

We're embroiled in a general war on terror and a specific war in Iraq, both of which devolved disappointingly quickly into a political tug-of-war, fought by leaders we can't trust. Sinister Arab faces and names are a staple of our news now. The blithe conviction that we were the most-beloved country in the world is gone, and so many tiny things we took for granted have changed as well. Some of still cringe when we hear a low-flying plane.

Well, I'm not telling anybody anything new. We all know the world changed. Most days we muddle along doing what needs to be done and don't think too hard about war or terrorism or the people who would gladly see us dead. This is a good day to think about it...to think about where we go from here and to remember the people who didn't get to see this strange new world.

Windy, rainy yuckiness.

That's what we had today courtesy of TS Ernesto. The wind actually woke me up this morning...and for it to penetrate through the hum of my white-noise fan that I can't sleep without, it had to have been fierce. I peeped out the back door and our creek was a river, spilling out of the ravine into the yard on the other side. And the winds and rains kept rising and falling in those bands of weather that you get with hurricanes and tropical storms--for some reason, that intrigues me. It's like tangible proof that the storm is rotating and hustling along way, way up there.

I had several errands I wanted to run, but after going out to the car to look for an umbrella, and not finding one, and getting soaked through my pants, shoes and raincoat...I thought better of it. I had just settled down on the couch with some lunch when the power went out.

I cannot, cannot sit alone in a dark house, so I went out and did my errands, anyway. And got drenched multiple times for the fun of it. I had to drive over into York County, to the neighborhood where we used to live, because that was the closest spot that had power. I was so proud of my fellow citizens, driving so carefully through intersection after intersection with darkened, powerless stoplights, stopping to let the other cars make their left or right turns across traffic. Seriously! I was amazed!

Mailed my nephew's birthday present (baking powder/vinegar-powered rocket and a book of 101 science experiments), filled up with cheap gas (under $3.00? Yeah, that's cheap.), got a small bag of ice and a styrofoam cooler just in case the outage lasted, and made a desultory trip to the scrapbook store.

I say "desultory" because having that scrapbook yard sale a few weeks ago and selling all that stuff just really shocked me. My passion for scrapbooking waned a long time ago, but this was like finding out your spouse of thirty years has cheated on you for twenty-nine years.

For those who don't scrapbook, let me explain: scrapbooking is, at it's most intense level, a cult. It's about creativity and memories, sure, but at the cult level--at the level where you know designers by their first names and can rattle off the submission guidelines for five different magazines--it's about products. Having lots and lots and lots of products. Having the newest and best and latest and greatest products. Being able to recognize a product line on sight and name the company, and often, the designer who created it. And, if you decide to take the next step, being able to sell said products with your own work.

I know I've talked about this before, and bemoaned my love/hate relationship with the process, the business, and my own tiny design "career." But looking at that mountain of STUFF, and thinking about the other mountain of STUFF I'd just sold in May--ugh. I feel let down by scrapbooking, and bored with it, and suckered into something I'm kind of tired of thinking about.

It's not about feeling like my work isn't good enough, because I think I'm an above-average scrapper most of the time. It's more about using the word "work" to describe something that used to be something I did in the hours I wasn't working.

I guess I feel tired of being sucked in to the consumer frenzy that is scrapbooking right now. I feed it and I feed off it. I want to do something different for a while. I'm tired of bitching and moaning and thinking dull thoughts about something that's supposed to be, well, fun.

Man, that was a long detour from my Day of Ernesto spiel. So, after moping through the scrapbook store and feeling sick of it all, I sloshed over to Barnes and Noble and propped my soggy self up on a barstool and indulged in a pumpkin spice latté, which just made its fall reappearance. I don't know. They sound good, and they sort of are good for the first three or four sips, but then you're just sucking down something way too sweet to be coffee. Every time I give in and have a Starbucks sweet coffee drink, I always feel oogy and swear off for six months. So no more lattés till, oh...March.

Todd and I tried to meet up and have dinner when he got off work, but nothing in the shopping district had power. So it was back over to beautiful York County, where we ate at our favorite greasy spoon, along with about fifty other people who had no power, no hot food, and nowhere else to go.

We bumped into my friend Becky and her husband there, and shared the big booth I snagged with them. I took a writing class from Becky in January-February, and she is sort of sweet and tart at the same time, smart and wounded. They lost their grown daughter several years ago to a particularly horrible case of MS, and I hope I'm not being fanciful or dramatic when I say that you can see that wound in her eyes, and in her husband's eyes. I don't have a lot of experience with death and grieving, but I can see its impact in them. Sometimes Becky looks lost, just for a second, when her face is in repose.

I just think the world of her, and I totally enjoyed her husband--I hadn't met him before. My favorite kind of man: quiet, smart, and creative, with kind eyes. We had a really nice supper together...such a little bit of serendipity!

We drove home to check on things, and lo and behold, there was light and power and Internet and all good things. I was so relieved. We lost power several weeks ago in a lightning storm, and I'm afraid I was a bit of a drama queen about it. ("I can't SLEEP without my FAN! I can't READ by CANDLE light!") So I was practicing my stiff upper lip all day..."tut tut, better get some ice, don't you know, bother this rain," and rehearsing ways to fall asleep without temperature control or white noise...and it turned out just fine. Isn't that always the way.

But hurricane season ain't over, and my stiff upper lip might just get a workout yet.

Grocery gaming.

The NSBR (non-scrapbooking-related) board at Two Peas is a blessing and a curse. A curse because it's easy to lose large chunks of time there, and a blessing because you can find out about all sorts of interesting things you'd never have known about otherwise.

Last week my discovery was a concept and website called The Grocery Game. It's a database that compiles grocery store weekly sale lists and matches them to available coupons to help you get the rock-bottom price for products.

I hate to grocery shop. Hate it with the white heat of a thousand suns. If there is one chore I wish I could hire out, it's grocery shopping. And since we moved to Virginia particularly, I've noticed the grocery bills climbing and climbing.

So after hearing story after story of saving 50-75% on grocery costs, I decided to do the four-weeks for $1.00 trial. I've got four stores on my list, and I've been to three of them this week, and saved 41% total.

It's time-consuming at first, cutting coupons, checking the lists for each store, and then making the rounds through unfamiliar stores (I don't shop at any of the four on my list regularly) but the folks on the GG message boards swear that once you build a stockpile of your basic food and toiletry items, you can cut both your time and expenses drastically.

For me, since I hate grocery shopping anyway, there's not much that could make me hate it more, so I might as well put the time in and see how it goes. Saving money might even help me hate grocery shopping a little less.

So that's been my life this week--coupons and lists. I dubbed this the Week of Unpleasant Tasks--I have several things on my to-do list this week that are among my very, very, VERY least favorite chores, so I decided to relegate them all to one week and get them over with. The fact that I'm sitting here blogging in the middle of the afternoon should tell you how hard I'm working on my list.

Midnight notes.

I am basking, BASKING I tell ya, in the wonderful cool dry midnight air coming in my study window.

I think this is the first time we've had the windows open at night in at least two months. Tomorrow night it will probably be warm, wet and humid again, but for tonight...I am loving it. I don't want to go to sleep, it's so pleasant to sit here and surf the net and listen to music and feel cool and breathe fresh air. One of the neighbors must have had a bonfire tonight, because there's a wisp of wood smoke blowing in--it smells wonderful.

Today (Saturday) was a mixed bag of a day, for sure. The scrapbook yard sale was this morning, and I spent most of the day Friday pulling more odds and ends from shelves and boxes and...the funnest part: pricing it. Oy, all those tiny stickers.

The church was open Friday evening, so Todd helped me take my carload of boxes inside, then stood around enjoying the wonderful world of female conversation...until I asked him to help me arrange the table. Then he beat it.

It took me most of three hours to set everything up and walk around and peruse everyone else's tables. There weren't as many people participating as I expected, maybe 12 or 15? I was very firm with myself and only bought a few goodies, just the irresistable ones. Some Heidi Swapp chipboard letters, a pack of American Crafts letter stickers (love those) and paper, a big Provo Craft stamp that I've been eyeing at Michael's for months, and an old Club Scrap stamp.

Today I arrived at the church at 8...the sale was scheduled to start at 9...but there were so many people wanting to come in, they just let 'em in. From about 8:30 to 10:30, things were nuts. Then the last hour and a half were slow.

I ended up making just over $300...awfully nice. I had my stuff priced low, and that helped. I put together a box of leftovers for charity, and pulled a few things that didn't sell to keep, and a few more to Ebay if I ever get around to it.

I heard some bad news at the sale about a person I care about. Checked in with her after the sale, and the bad news was true. She's got cancer. It's serious. I'm not sure she wants it spread around, so I'm not, but if you read this, please say a little prayer for her and her family. The news definitely brought me down from my post-sale high. I freaking hate cancer, I hate it.

I took a nap in the late afternoon, I was so tired from the sensory overload of the sale. I get sensory overload pretty quickly anyway, and the sale was hectic, at least for a while. Totaling stuff up in my head, making change, finding bags, answering questions, and trying to keep my spare eye on the table to make sure nobody had sticky fingers. My friend Cheryl, at the table next to me, had a few stamps lifted. Honestly, though, I had so much stuff, I'm not sure I would have missed a few small things going astray. I swear I don't know what is wrong with people...the sale was held in the sanctuary of the Catholic church, and Todd was shocked when I told him there had been "lifting": "Stealing in a CHURCH??!" Yep, this is where we've arrived as a society.

And on that cheerful note, nighty-night.

Blogs to visit.

I've been addicted to finding vintage/sewing/crafting blogs lately. Here are some of the very best I've found:

Yarnstorm. She's taking a little summer hiatus right now, but the archives are so fun to read. Sort of a chronicling of the lovely British life I'd like to lead...

My House is Cuter Than Yours. I may have mentioned this one before--it was the first of this sort of vintage crafting blog that I discovered. I love this girl's flair. (Not the Office Space kind!)

Angry Chicken. Super-ultra-creative cute stuff.

Little Birds. Even more super-ultra, etc., etc.

Turkey Feathers. Apparently bird themes are common among the vintagey sewing creative types.

Meggiecat. I haven't totally explored this one, but she seems to love vintage images and themes.

Pandora's Button Box. I just can't believe real people are this energetic and creative. I need to get off my computer chair and start taking vitamins!

Wee Wonderfuls. This girl is so freaking talented, she creates sewing patterns and embroidery patterns and other adorable creations seemingly at the drop of a hat. Lots of goodies here.

That should be some good surfing fodder for y'all.

More old stuff.

We headed up to Richmond this past weekend to check out a flea market Todd had heard was good, but...um, not so much. Lots and lots of garbage, nothing remotely interesting. Unless you find used pants and stolen DVDs interesting. Todd did pick up a motor and a couple other odds and ends but my thrift vintage junk dream was rudely punctured.

So we headed off to explore and find some antique malls. We went to three all together, and although Todd found nothing, I did buy just a couple little things.

At the last antique mall, I walked into a treasure trove of vintage paper STUFF. The dealer said she's one of the largest paper ephemera dealers in the country, and I can believe it. I've never seen so many magazines and ads and pamphlets and STUFF in one spot before.

I didn't get to look through everything--it would have taken a whole day--but I grabbed just a few old magazines for fun at-home perusal. I loved the colors on this one, and doesn't that look like a room you'd sleep in at grandma's house?

I also got a copy of an old magazine called Everywoman, which features an essay by Senator John Kennedy on whether the U.S. will ever have a woman president (he waffles around the topic in truly Presidential style), and a couple old Better Homes and Gardens.

At the first antique mall we stopped at, I found this old reader:

My dad has been a custodian at a local school for 30 years, and when I was a kid and an avid reader, he'd bring home books that were being discarded from the school library, in a fruitless effort to keep me supplied with reading material. (And also because he's constitutionally incapable of seeing perfectly good items thown away.)

This was in the 1970s, which meant that most of the books being pitched were from the 1940s, and the readers, in particular, were full of the most charming illustrations I'd ever seen. I firmly believe my love for 1940s-style home decor comes from my years of absorbing these pictures.

So whenever I see an old reader with nice pictures, I pick it up. This one is from 1935, so the style is a little older than the readers I remember from my childhood, but the pictures are just lovely:

Old treasures.

As promised, here are a few of my flea market/garage sale/antique store treasures that I've acquired in the past few weeks.

I've had a small globe collection for several years now--only one of which is at all old (late 1940's). My others date from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. While I was home in Ohio, I picked up another medium-sized globe and two small globe banks, which I'm constantly on the lookout for and never seem to be able to find.

I have one more globe in the mix--the small cream globe on the left shelf came from the Dollar Spot at Target a couple weeks ago. What can I say--it was cute!

In the area where I grew up in Ohio, we have a flea market phenomenon that's held in the countryside every Friday. It's the Rogers flea market and open-air sale, so called because it takes place right outside the town of Rogers, Ohio. People at home just say, "I'm going to Rogers Friday," and everybody know whatof they speak. Or as my niece Kylie asked my mom one day, "Does Grandpa have Rogers tomorrow?" Yes, my dad goes often enough that Kylie just assumed it was a weekly obligation, like church or Scout meetings.

When I was in college, Rogers was the summer treasure hunt spot for me and my friends. We had a friend at the time who was heavily into Partridge Family and other 70s collectibles, which in the late 80s were still considered junk and therefore easy to find. We picked up quite a few treasures at the sale, which has several separate elements. There are pole barns with tables and booths selling everything from produce to the finest plastic crap China has to offer. There's a whole alley of tables with more Chinese garbage--sunglasses, offbrand DVDs, cheap tools--and the requisite dusty Avon and Mary Kay boxes.

But there are a few aisles out in the pastures where junk dealers set up their old stuff. Antique dealers come, too, and set out things that are maybe too junky to sell for antiques, but still old and cool. This is my Nirvana.

Todd insisted that our Fourth of July visit this year stretch out to cover the Friday after the Fourth, so we could make it to Rogers for a pilgrimage. He goes in search of old dusty tools to add to his old dusty tool collection in the garage. I went this time in search of house treasures.

At an antique dealer's table, I found this fascinating lady:

She's made of metal, pretty solid, and she has a hole on her back which makes me wonder if she was attached to something--a lamp?-- in a previous life:

I set her in front of my 100-year-old daffodil watercolor that Todd got me for Valentine's Day a couple of years ago, and she looks perfect there. I absolutely love her!

From the same dealer, I got a yellow McCoy-lookalike vase with handles, and in another excursion sometime in the past few weeks, I picked up another yellow McCoy knockoff, expanding my antique collection to--three. (The vase on the far right is a Michael's special--but the one on the far left is a "real McCoy.")

I found this great piece at the Williamsburg antique mall, which is a place Todd and I like to stroll through a few times a year. The pottery is very lightweight, but the style of printing makes me think it's pretty old--19-teens or twenties? Plus, how many years has it been since a cook needed to keep a jar of sand in the kitchen?

The jar is residing on a shelf in my red sea-themed bathroom, waiting for a few more treasures to join it and make the display complete.

That same day at the antique mall, I came across this old U.S. map. It's in a very cheap poster frame, but the map itself (a giveaway from a Pittsburgh company) looks to be 70 or 80 years old. What I love about it is the quote printed across the top: "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, 'This my own, my native land' ?"

The plan is to mat and re-frame it and hang it over the fireplace in the living room, but I thought it filled this empty dining room spot very nicely till then:

Finally a couple of garage sale finds...when Lisa was visiting in June, she and Todd went off garage-saling one Saturday morning, and came back with a tale of a wondrous sale where an older lady was selling stacks of vintage tablecloths and other treasures. Amazingly, Todd was able to retrace his steps and take me there, where I snagged this stack of tablecloths for $1.00 apiece:

I'd like to sell a few of them on Ebay, but I haven't taken the time yet to check and see what sorts of prices vintage linens are bringing right now.

At the same sale, I got this set of dessert dishes and plates:

And last for today, a bit of amateur artwork I found at a yard sale a couple weeks ago. It's signed on the back by the artist, who painted it as a Christmas present to the family in 1967. The frame has a chunk out of it, which is a shame, because otherwise I'd just leave it in its original frame, which seems to suit it better than a mat-and-frame set-up would.

I love old stuff!

Caterpillars for Kylie.

I took these pictures for my niece Kylie, who is a bug...I was going to say "bug lover," but "bug adorer" would be more accurate. These little buggers ate half of my enormous dill plant a couple weeks ago. Last year, at our condo, they munched my parsley plant down to a few bare stalks, but I guess this year the dill looked more appealing.

Maybe they'll come back to visit in their butterfly stage soon!

I'm baaaa-aaack.

Several people have informed me that I am being terribly neglectful of my blog. I admit it's nice to be missed.

I've been in a summer funk, where nothing seems important, and thoughts are too heavy or tiresome to write down. After many years of being a depressed person, I understand now that it's cyclical. It cycles in and out of my life, and the best I can do is just ride it out.

Sometimes when you're in the thick of it, it feels like you've always felt this way, that your whole life has been a feeble gesture in the face of despair, and you'll never be hopeful again. It's important to cling to reality and believe you'll feel good again. I'm better at that now...I understand myself better.

I'm lucky...the lows aren't as low as they were 10 or 15 years ago when depression really derailed my life. But yeah, last week was kinda low. No real reason, I guess it was just my time. I can point to a couple things, like summer heat and feeling sealed up in this house, but there's always something that my mind latches onto and turns into a reason for feeling bad.

I try not to write about feeling bad or cranky or angry here because I hate reading other people's whiny blogs, so I don't want to subject anyone to my whines. Anyway, this week is better.

In the calm between moods, I've hit several garage sales and flea markets and picked up some really interesting odds and ends for the house, so I will try to get some pictures up and running soon. I'm also purging my scraproom yet again for a community scrapbooking sale in a couple of weeks. I've really been ruthless, and I have several boxes going--fingers crossed I can sell it all and make some cash. The purging has gone hand in hand with a major re-arranging and re-purposing in my study, too, in an attempt to undo the effects of "just get it moved in, I don't care where you put it." Three moves in four years have really put a crimp in my organized life!

Anyway, I'll be back later, hopefully with pics.

Random thoughts.

-I'm going to do a rain dance--the sky is getting gray and I SO don't want to have to water my garden tonight!

-Once again, I'm down to the wire and wondering what projects to create for my home class tomorrow morning.

-I'm tired of having to think about what to make for supper.

-The crape myrtles are blooming and they are just gorgeous. I can see a white one and a purple one from my window, and there are hot pink ones out on the street, too.

-I want fall to come but I'm afraid of trying on my jeans and having none of them fit.

-I wish the summer Olympics were this year so there'd be something fun to watch on TV.

My ribbon rack.

The blog challenge at Two Peas today is to share a scrapping organization tip, and I've been wanting to share this great ribbon rack for months, so here's my chance.

Todd made this for me for Christmas. It hangs on the back of my scraproom door and I can thread all my ribbon spools on the dowels. Long unspooled bits of ribbon get wound onto empty paper towel rolls and threaded on, too.

This is such a convenience, I can't even tell you! Isn't Todd a sweetie?

I swept and mopped the kitchen and foyer floors, ran the dishwasher, emptied the dish drainer, washed some pots and pans, and tidied up. I still need to weed the front flower beds, but it is so hot and humid outside, and I can't make myself get up early enough to go out when it's bearable. I'm not sure it's ever bearable out there at this point, honestly.

Gardening seems like such a great idea in April...then you get into July and August, and it doesn't seem worth it to have to be out there in the heat, trying to keep your precious plants alive, while trying to eradicate the weeds which seem to have NO problem springing up, no matter how dry and fiery it gets outside. URGH.

In other news, I came across the August/Spetember Paper Crafts the other day, which has a "Project Fiskars" insert inside with some of my work from February...a frame, a school set, and a party set. Now I just need my paycheck for that...!

I found the Autumn Leaves "Freestyle" book finally, at my LSS. Better late than never, I guess. It's so far removed from my style, and yet I'm hoping to find some inspiration in some small ways. Now thatI have my housework mostly done, and my scraproom tidied up, I think I'll scrap a few pics this afternoon!

Pasta salad.

Today's blog challenge at Two Peas is to post a favorite BBQ/grilling recipe. One of my favorite things to make with grilled meat is a pasta salad. I came up with my own mixture, trying to emulate an antipasto type of thing.

You need:
one 16-oz box of your favorite pasta (I like rotini/corkscrews, and I used some wheat ones last time that held up really well and tasted great)
a 1/4-lb chunk of salami, cubed
a 1/4-lb chunk of provolone cheese, cubed
a few grilled red peppers (either homemade or from a jar)
a small jar of marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
a handful each of chickpeas and kidney beans (can be omitted if you're cooking for a bean-hater like my DH)
half a chopped green pepper for crunch and color
a pint or so of grape tomatoes, cut in half
a bottle of "Just 2 Good" Italian dressing from Wishbone

Boil and drain the pasta, chop up all the goodies, throw 'em together in a big bowl, and squeeze as much dressing over it as you want. Start with less, then add more if it needs it. Last time, I used most of a bottle, which surprised me. Throw it in the fridge and let it sit for a couple hours before dinner. This is a super make-ahead side dish, perfect with grilled chicken and grilled sweet corn.

Pirates: crusty.

We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest tonight, and my primary thoughts about this flick were:

Crusty. And gooey.

I mean, look at this:

And this:

I wish I could find a picture of Will Turner's dad--he was crusty in the extreme. And gooey.

Everybody in this film was crusty, gooey, and/or in extreme need of dental treatment. And a hot soapy bath. Only the lovers, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, looked semi-clean and non-nauseating.

Yeah, it was sorta fun, and yeah--even dirty, skeezy-toothed, eye-linered and fey, Johnny Depp is hot. Good swordfights and a few scenes that made my mouth drop open wondering how--even with stunt doubles and models--exactly how did they film that?

But mostly...just crusty. And gooey. Can't wait for number three--maybe it will inspire me to vomit right in the aisle! Good times.

And a few more pics.

I feel terrible that I didn't take any pictures of my side of the family...no pictures of my treasure hunt with Tanner and Kylie, no pictures of our picnic at my folks' that night. In my defense, I was exhausted that day!

All I got was a few pictures from Kylie's very first t-ball practice the night before we left for home. She's the girl in green, and her dad, my BIL Ky, is the coach. These kids could NOT have been any cuter!

When I first started scrapping, I was too much of a photog. A million pictures of every little thing--too many. Now I've gone too far in the other direction--I never have a camera handy when I need it, and I never seem to get pictures of the things I wish I had afterwards. There are so many people I left out of the photo record this visit! And when you only make it home a couple times a year, it feels so much more important to get everything on film. Or on memory card, to be more up-to-date.

I think that's partly why I stopped trying--it all felt so important, I started getting tired of feeling like I needed to have a camera attached to my face all day long. I'm wondering if I need to make a list of the pictures I definitely want during a trip, so I can at least get those, and not feel so bad about missing so much.

More vacation pics.

I seem to only be able to put a few pictures in a post now. Delightful!

Here's a few more pics, me with Miss G:

Todd's dad sailing his boat:

Todd driving the pontoon boat on a gorgeous chilly lake evening:

Me enjoying the sunset boat ride. It's been two years since I've been to the lake in the summer, and I forgot how wonderful it smells and how beautiful it is. It's honestly one of my favorite places on earth. So many happy memories there.

Back home again.

Got home Saturday from a week in Ohio over the Fourth of July. It was so nice in Ohio, I didn't want to come home. It was humid the first few days, but after a day of rain--on the Fourth--it got wonderfully cool. Still sunny, but a cool breeze--I mean, it was really heaven.

I had planned to spend most of the beginning of the week at the lake where Todd's folks live, getting more time in with my SILs and nieces and nephew. But my parents ended up having a few days free, and I spent quite a bit of time with them. It might sound silly for a 35-year-old woman to say, but I quite liked having some "mom and dad" time--having them all to myself. It happens very seldom, and it was really nice! I also had breakfast with a couple of my aunts, my sister and my cousin Janine, did a little shopping with my aunt Carol, and had a treasure hunt with Tanner and Kylie.

It's always hard when we're at home--no matter who I'm spending time with, I feel bad that I'm not spending it with someone else. Even with a week's time, there still wasn't enough time to see everyone I wanted, and to do everything I'd planned.

But it was still great. I hadn't realized how much I miss cornfields, and barns, and gently rolling hills. I honestly wished I didn't have to come back to Newport News.

Some pics:

Angelo, Evelyn and Gianna on my FIL's pontoon boat. I can't believe how big they all look!

Gianna and Angelo playing with balloons inside. The Fourth was so rainy, we had to do a few indoor things with the kids. The balloons kept them busy and happy for a good 45 minutes. Here's Todd showing them how to draw a face on a balloon. Then they deflated it and watched it get tiny!

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head.

Or they would if I ever left the house. Rainy, rainy, rainy. You wouldn't believe how much rain we've had the past week.

Not as much as Baltimore and D.C., but still! It's fascinating, too--you wouldn't even need radar pictures to tell you the rain is sweeping across in bands. It pours, peters out, almost clears up...and then you notice the sky has darkened again and the clouds are gathering to the west. Then it's pouring again.

Our normally-a-trickle creek down at the bottom of our yard is quite swollen. Last Friday we got about three hours of torrential rain, and the creek rose a good three feet, spilling out into the ravine like a little river. It's not that dramatic this week, as there are lulls between the cloudbursts. It's pretty full, though.

I've been checking other bookmarked blogs today, and it looks like June is a slow month for many of us. I could plead busy-ness the first few weeks of the month, but lately it's just ennui. Not sleeping well, not eating well, feeling very clouded over, just like the skies. It's a mild depression cycle, I recognize them quite well by this time. Nothing feels very important, or like it matters very much. I'm waiting it out, and figuring that a week in Ohio over the Fourth of July will ease me out of it somewhat.

When I come back from Ohio, the crackdown will happen. Time to take care of myself...I don't know why it's so hard to be good to yourself, but I suck at it! Probably because all the good things you have to do for yourself don't sound like fun--eating right, exercising, staying on top of finances, keeping the house tidy, yada yada. But they really make a difference, and I know it.

I'm enjoying the rain. It's a nice change of pace from hot, sunny and humid. We definitely have humid, but the temps are reasonable, and the cloudy skies make the house feel cozy and safe.

My new blog!

I decided to start a food blog, with recipes and food memories. It's called Fresh Sweet Corn--check it out!

I've been wrestling with Blogger for a couple of days, trying to get a few more pictures up. No luck yet, and I have a headache tonight, so no wrestling tonight. We got a massive thunderstorm through here late this afternoon, and the headache came along with the change in pressure.

Our creek has swollen awesomely with the couple hours' worth of heavy rain. Looks like a small river down there. Todd is very excited.

I got an e-mail from Simple Scrapbooks the other evening, asking for a layout for their December issue. As SS is my very favoritest magazine, I was pretty pleased! It's a page I did about baking fruitcake and my memory of the home-baked fruitcakes my grandpa used to send us.

Taught my at-home scrapbooking class today with four students, which is about all the dining table can hold anyway. We had a splendid time!

That's it, I'm beat.

Where I've been.

We waved off the last of our June guests yesterday morning. Todd's sister Lisa, her husband Tony and their girls Evelyn and Anna were here for four days, and we had a super time.

I was eager to spend some one-on-one time with the girls, especially Anna, who is almost two. Distance and work have really limited the time I've been able to spend with her in her short life, and I wanted to make up for that this weekend.

Anna is busy, busy, busy, but we did have some fun moments blowing bubbles and digging in the sand. We worked on naming "Aunt Janelle" and "Uncle Todd," and she completely amazed us, as they rolled down the driveway yesterday morning, by waving and saying quite clearly in her two-year-old dialect, "Bye, Aunt Janelle! Bye, Uncle Todd!"

Evelyn was my sidekick all weekend, which was great. I've spent a little more time with her, as she's almost four, but it's been few and far between, and she's always been a tiny bit shy with us. That was completely gone this weekend, and we colored with crayons and sidewalk chalk, tossed the soccer ball around, blew bubbles, had tea parties, cooked together, and watched DVDs together. She's just a pleasure to hang out with.

Here's Evelyn and Anna at the Yorktown beach:

The weekend before last, my parents, my sister Jenita, and her kids Tanner and Kylie paid us a short but action-packed visit. Dad had been promising the kids that he'd take them to the ocean this summer, and they were beyond excited. We went to Sandbridge beach, and I have never seen two kids have more fun than they did. Tanner and Todd jumped in the waves, and Todd showed Tanner how to boogie-board. Kylie looked for clams and crabs and other critters, and did a little small-scale boogie-boarding, too. It was such a fun day!

I'm having technical difficulties posting pictures all of a sudden, so I'll finish updating later. Stupid Blogger.

Summer plans.

Today's blog challenge at Two Peas seems particularly appropriate today:

Special family plans this summer, we all have them.
What are yours?
What are you doing that you consider SPECIAL this summer?
What are you anticipating?

Well, as we are heading into June, I'm actually anticipating quite a lot! Todd's sister Julie and her two kids are flying in tomorrow and staying till Monday.

Next Friday is my niece Marissa's first birthday party in Harrisonburg. My dad, mom, sister, nephew, and niece are all coming down for that, and then journeying on to our house to stay from Saturday till Monday.

The following weekend, Todd's other sister, her husband, and their two girls are coming for a long weekend.

The next weekend, my friend Cheryl and I are talking about running up to Chantilly, VA for the Great American Scrapbook Convention.

And the weekend after that is Fourth of July weekend, and we'll be heading up to Ohio for five days or so.

And there you have it--June, poof!--gone in the blink of an eye. I'm not sure what is happening the rest of the summer...there will probably be a short visit from my brother's family in there somewhere, but we won't have any vacation time left to take any fun trips. Such is the sacrifice of living so far away from family!

We spent Memorial Day weekend painting our downstairs half-bath red. Bright red. Tonight Todd is going to put in the new light fixture, towel bar, and TP holder. I painted the dark wood vanity white, and the doors red...but I had them outside to paint them, and the humidity has been off the charts, and the paint has never fully dried. Not too sure what I'm going to do about that...?

Anyway, home improvement chores combined with menstrual hormones = lots of muttered and not-so-muttered bad words. I hate to paint on a good-mood day...on a bad-mood day, it really sucks. Todd was a sweetie and took on most of it himself, since the bathroom isn't big enough for both of us to be in it at the same time. I still managed to drip pink primer and red paint on quite a few surfaces, though.

Oh, yes, the pink primer. I had the paint guy at Lowe's tint the primer for me since I figured it would take the red better. It was PEPTO pink. Pink Panther pink! We were cracking up as we slapped it on the walls...it gave off quite a rosy glow. Of course, so does the red. I'm not sure what I think about it, to be honest. I know when we turn around to sell this place, the potential buyers are going to moan and groan about it!

I'll post some pictures if we ever get it done.

Friday funk.

I've felt so BLAH the last couple of days! Just very nothing-going-on-upstairs. Blank, blah, blue.

I tweaked my neck and shoulder, either flying kites on Tuesday, or sleeping on our hard hotel bed Tuesday night, and that is definitely slowing me down and adding to the blahs.

In lieu of anything more interesting, here's a layout I did a couple weeks ago for an ongoing contest at Scrapforums. The topic for the first challenge was to use any part of the lyrics of the Dixie Chicks' new song, "Not Ready to Make Nice." We could use all of it or just a word or two, in the title or in the journaling.

The song is a pretty mad, defiant song, and I really don't "go there" in my scrapbooking. Plus, I'm not really in that kind of place right now in my life. I pulled virtually the only positive sentiment out of the song, the line: "It turned my whole world around, and I kind of like it."

I was going to scrap about some things in my life that seemed negative but turned out to have positive results. That seemed too complicated (and I'll be honest--too much thought involved), so I decided to scrap about how scrapbooking has turned my world around. I took pictures of all my tools and radiated those around my paper-pieced globe. I'm pretty pleased with it. I took it out on the sunny deck to photograph it, so the lights and shadows look a lot more extreme than they really are.

Got my "40 Techniques" book in the mail today, along with all my cards, so I updated my resume while I was thinking about it. It's seriously time to start submitting again!

Happy birthday, Grandma.

Thought I'd give Grandma her own separate post, because she deserves it! My Grandma Martin is 86 years old today. In the past five months, she's experienced a broken hip, with surgery, and a bad gall bladder, also requiring surgery, but she's doing well. I know life isn't completely easy for her, but she gets through with grace and a good spirit.

This picture is one that Grandpa took of her around the time they got married in 1943. It's been through quite a few years of bad handling since then. A couple months ago, Grandpa asked my mom to see if she could get the photo restored.

I talked to my dad last week, and he said the restored copy came out wonderfully--not a crease or rip to be seen. When my mom gave it to Grandpa, he got tears in his eyes and said to my dad, "Wasn't she beautiful?"

Well, she still is, of course. And she is very loved, and I hope she feels that love today in abundance. Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Mini-break.

Ever since I read Bridget Jones' Diary to Todd several years ago, he's been fascinated with the concept of a "mini-break." It's just a weekend getaway, but "mini-break" sounds so much more...Continental.

So that was my "pack a bag" surprise yesterday for our anniversary. First, Todd came home at lunch time, bringing me my present: a teeny tiny MP3 player. Then we went to our favorite diner for lunch, and then down to Mt. Trashmore in Virginia Beach to fly kites. Then we stopped at the LSS there--and they had the new Paper Crafts book that I contributed to, and that I've been DYING to see for months! So we sat and looked through that, and found all my cards. It was such an unexpected treat!

Then we went over to Portsmouth and had dinner at our absolute favorite German restaurant, the Biergarten. Their claim to fame is having umpteen-dozen fancy beers on tap, but since I don't drink beer, and Todd doesn't drink at all, that part is sort of lost on us.

What they do have is fabulous bratwurst, knockwurst, cabbage, sauerkraut, dilly green beans, German potato salad, of course...oh, and Black Forest cake. And excellent coffee. It's delectable.

Then we drove back up to Yorktown, walked along the river in the dark, spent the night at the hotel on the river, got up and took another walk along the river...then we had lunch, and Todd went off for an afternoon at work.

Wasn't that a nice mini-break? I'm happy Todd thought of it.

Here's the cover of the book--I'm kind of surprised they went with this all-white look for the cover, but the book is really excellent: spiral-bound with a built-in stand, tabbed sections for each set of techniques, designer and theme indexes, and a DVD with 40 extra cards. I'm really thrilled it's finally out...it was fun to do the projects for it.

Pretty girls.

Apparently Todd was lying when he said we were going to celebrate our anniversary on the weekend, because he e-mailed me this morning and told me to pack a bag and that he was coming home at lunchtime. So I'm sitting here waiting for him to get home any minute now. I'm all curious!

Thought I'd blog while I was waiting and share this layout I finished yesterday, which I really like. I like the big picture of the girls at the bottom. They are both so beautiful!

The journaling is probably not legible, so in a nutshell--this is my sister's daughter (the big girl) and my brother's daughter (the tiny girl). They are both the second kids in their families, and it's been funny to see how Marissa, the baby, is so much like Kylie, the big girl, was as a baby. Kylie was the squirmiest, movingest little thing you ever saw--crawling on stuff, climbing like a monkey, absolutely fearless. And Marissa is the same way. They both have the same little spark of devil in their eyes. This was the first time I've seen them together when Marissa was really old enough to respond to Kylie, and they really just connected. I just think they are the loveliest things, don't you?

Oh, and Kylie is the very little girl in the Father's Day frame below. She is growing up so fast--well, they all do!

Sunny Sunday.

Just another quiet Sunday here. Todd's been out fishing all day and I've been hanging out in my PJs, doing laundry, messing around on the computer. It's a nice day to be inside, with the windows open and the ceiling fans blowing a breeze around.

Yesterday we went down to the Outer Banks for the day, to celebrate our....drumroll, please...fourteenth anniversary. Fourteen years--and I'll go ahead and trot out all the clichés here:

It hardly seems possible!
Seems like our wedding was just yesterday!
Time flies when you're having fun!

...because they're all sort of true. It's definitely been fun. Lots and lots of life experiences between that day and this, lots of laughs and giggles and shared jokes, blessedly few tears, lots of places we've been and things we've seen together. I love being married to this guy and hopefully he feels the same!

Our actual anniversary is Tuesday, but as Todd pointed out, yesterday was really the anniversary, as we were married the third Saturday in May, so it made sense to celebrate on the convenient weekend day.

It was a gorgeous day...we hit a few shops in Kill Devil Hills and Nag's Head, spent an hour on the beach at Nag's Head, ate lunch at our favorite BBQ place, and had dinner at a tiny local bar/seafood joint. We honeymooned on the Outer Banks, and the weather was gray and cloudy and COLD, the whole week. Yesterday couldn't have been different, except for one thing--the water was just as freezingly cold!

I felt like I should take tons of pictures, but it is such a pain dragging a camera around. I did get a few, but I don't know if they were any good. Todd took the camera on the boat with him today, so I can't check yet.

Todd called a few minutes ago and said he's bringing home some freshly caught sea bass, so I suppose I should do a little Net research and find out the best way to cook it for dinner tonight!

At last!

I found something exciting at Barnes and Noble today--my Father's Day frame on the last page of PaperWorks magazine. I've been waiting for this for like eight months! It's the first time I've ever been published in this magazine.

This is a picture of my brother-in-law Ky and his kiddies Tanner and Kylie, taken on Father's Day, as a matter of fact, by Todd. We were in Missouri for a family reunion, three years ago. The kids look so little! Especially Kylie.

It's a drop-dead gorgeous day today--breezy, sunny, even a tiny bit chilly in the wind. I love spring days like this. I had to run a couple errands today, and it was such a pleasure to drive around with the windows down and the radio on.

I'm trying to get a couple layouts done for the CK Idea Annual call--deadline today of course. It's been a long time since I've scrapped for a CK call, and I'm finding it just as creatively stifling as ever! Seeing something I made in print always sparks the spirit, though--makes me want to keep trying.

Layout.

I scrapped one of my rose pictures the other night, just because I couldn't wait any longer. I love Rhonna Farrer's new papers and rub-ons, so I used those. I think they were just made for this picture!

I also made my own printer paper block by printing a poem on a white crackle paper. It's from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" by Robert Herrick. The opening line, which may or may not be legible on my layout, is "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a'flying; And that same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying."

Which seems like a truthful sentiment, if not perhaps profound...until you read the rest of the poem and see that what's he saying is. "Hey all you young hotties who are saving it--you need to get laid now, 'cause you ain't getting any younger. And by the way, how 'bout it?"

At least that's what I got from it. Heh. I think Herrick was a player.

Not older than dirt...yet.

Someone posted this at Two Peas today...I remember 12 of these things.

Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3 Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5 Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17 Metal ice trays with lever
18 Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I remember how candy cigarettes seemed soooo cool and sinful. I still remember how those wax bottles tasted when you chewed them. I remember my mom collecting S&H Green Stamps when I was very, very little.

I remember my small collection of 45s...I got to the age of having disposable income just a couple years before 45s were being phased out. We also had children's music on 45s, too, and I think we had a tiny record player, too.

I remember mimeographed school papers and how they smelled. And I remember blue flashbulbs and how they would look all milky and melted inside when they'd been popped. And metal ice-trays make me think of going to my Grandma Martin's house.

It's so funny how those products that we never paid any attention to way back when can unleash a flood of memories years later!

Lovely words.

I saw these lines on another blog yesterday, and I want to put them here so I can see them when I need to. I hope they speak to someone else, too.

“Ring the bells that still can ring-

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.”

-Leonard Cohen

Happy scrappy stuff.

The challenge at Two Peas today is to blog about something in your scraproom that makes you happy. Here's a couple of things I enjoy:

I've had this poster for 10 or 12 years...I bought it in Idaho. I've had it in several homes and on several different walls since then, but it looks the best on my teal wall here.

I got this wall vase and silk flowers at Jo-Ann's and stuck them in a corner that I thought needed livening up. Seems like they get lost here, but I do like the way they look.

I think my mom got this old jar for me, and I've never found the perfect use for it until I realized I could keep my ribbon odds and ends in it. I have a rack for the spools and the really long pieces (wound onto paper towel rolls) but those little snippets needed a home. I like the way they look in here.

Cards.

Here are the cards I created for my "at home" class last Friday. Kay, Pat, and Rosalyn all came, and we had a terrific time. It's so much more fun to teach at home than to teach for a store, where you have to use the stuff they carry and want to sell. Teaching for myself, I can grab and use anything that catches my eye, as long as I have enough of it!

Sunday.

Well, the yard sale was perfect. Perfect weather (sunny, warm, breezy), lots of people stopping, and lots of compliments on how well-organized and displayed our stuff was. (Finally some pay-off for my 13 months of retail work!) Our neighbor came over and sat and chatted with us most of the time, too, so it was great to get to know her better.

And...we made $400! Much better than I had hoped! About half of that is mine, from the sale of my craft stuff and my clothes. It will all go back into the house one way or another, though.

Today I am totally beat. And a little sunburned. I'm glad it's Sunday, so I can feel justified in lounging around.

Happy Mother's Day to my sweet mom and my sweet mom-in-law! Love you both!

Yard sale prep.

You know, I've never thought of us as conspicuous consumers...but how in the world did we accumulate so much crap otherwise?

Yes, it's yard sale time tomorrow, and I spent the afternoon and evening hauling things out of boxes and closets and slapping on price stickers.

In my defense, about 60% of the scrapbooking stuff I'm getting rid of was sent to me, not purchased by me, so I don't have near as much money sunk into the pile as it may appear.

But the clothes? Yeah, that's all my money. Sigh.

My back is killing me! But it's going to feel so good to rid ourselves of all this stuff.

I didn't realize till today that I was going to get rid of as much scrap/stamp stuff as I did. I called my friend Cheryl and asked her to spread the word among her friends. She called back a couple hours later and said she was spreading the word on the Internet, too. ***forehead slap*** It's so nice of her to be my brain when mine is vacationing. If only I'd realized the scope of this earlier in the week, so I could have really promoted it all week!

It's supposed to be a gorgeous day tomorrow, so fingers crossed that we can make a bundle!

Anybody else swoon when Jim kissed Pam on "The Office" last night? Mm mm mm mm MM. I can't tell you how many years it's been since I was all agog over a season ender and all upset because I have to wait four months to find out what happens!